


abyssus invocat

by autumnstwilight (sewohayami)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, M/M, One Shot, Post-Game, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide, Together in Death, ignis is not okay, the working title for this was depressingshit.txt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 13:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15972869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewohayami/pseuds/autumnstwilight
Summary: At the end of their journey, the light returns, but Ignis is still lost.





	abyssus invocat

The fight was hard. The buildings resounded with the clash of blades and gunshots rang out, as his heart pounded with exertion and he gasped air into his burning lungs. There was no margin for error, no room for hesitation, and not a moment to think about what could be happening in the throne room behind them. The presence of the daemons was so thick that the air seemed to crackle with a dark electricity. His daggers cleaved and dissected flesh, flew through the air and landed true, flashed back into his hands just in time to parry yet another blow. 

Over the rumbling growls that came from every direction, Ignis could hear other sounds too, a grunt of exertion, a gasp of pain. His own limbs were beginning to tremble with fatigue, and the thought passed through his mind that perhaps the gods intended to allow them all the same fate. And yet, somewhere out of reach, just behind his heaving shoulders, Noctis might live still. As long as that possibility existed, his duty was not fulfilled. Thus there was but one course of action, and no matter how heavy his arms grew, his daggers were never less than precise.

The iron giant’s blade crashed onto the ground, its tendons severed, and before Ignis’ ears could recover from the discordant ring of metal on stone, a gunshot sounded from close behind him. The daemon slumped, and he took a swift step back to avoid being caught under its dissolving corpse. Warily, he reached out his senses for the next opponent, yet found none. He took a full breath for what seemed like the first time in hours.

“It’s over, then.”

It was Prompto’s hand that he felt on his arm.

He heard quiet movement, then sensed the others still, as though they were taking in the sight of the sky lightening on the horizon, in a way that had not occurred for almost ten long years. There was a hushed breath, a step forward. He felt the tension run through them, with a spark both thrilling and painful. And then, the unmistakable warmth of the sun reached his own face.

The night had passed.

The world appeared as a muddied and dim blur of grey at the center of his vision, fading rapidly to black around the edges. If he turned his head in a certain way, he could make out a pale and weak dot, like a single drop of water fallen onto a page of wet ink. Here was the light that they had fought so hard for, all of it in that faint smudge of grey-white, and, as they stood in silence, he tried to convince himself that it had been worth it. That, at least, Noct had thought it was all worth it.

He turned, feeling the sun beat down on his shoulders, hotter for its long absence, and knew the other two followed behind. His feet found the stairs, walking up them with a military gait and a muscle memory he did not know he had retained, from whenever he had been here last. The carpet would surely have faded and stained, but it still muted his footsteps.

The soft echoes changed, the lingering cold of the shadows fell across him and he knew he stood before the open space of the throne room. The scent of blood lingered in the air, copper at the back of his nostrils. Dead, dead, dead. The Lucii. Insomnia. All of it. The emblem of the Kingsglaive, meaningless now without a king, burned into his back like an accusation.

He gritted his teeth, sucking in a hiss of cool air across his tongue, choking down any sound that might have tried to escape his lips. The last flight of stairs bore him upward, to the throne where his king sat. Heat pricked at his eyes and slid down his cheeks, and how he hated himself. What right did he have to cry, when he had let it come to this?

He was distantly aware of Gladiolus and Prompto behind him, of a heaving and ragged breath to his left and a swallowed sob to his right. He was dimly aware of the silent pact they had shared to remain strong, but all of it was ripped away by the howl that escaped him, an animal cry that his lungs forced forth of their own will. His chest heaved and shuddered as he sank to his knees before the throne, hands clutching futilely to the fabric of the King’s cloak, fingers twisting.

He’d known this was coming. He’d seen it in a vision from the gods and in his mind’s eye every day since. He’d spent ten years dreading it. Steeling himself for the inevitable, yet wracking his brain for countless hours for an plan of escape, another way, as though he were a prisoner convinced he could dig through a stone wall with his fingernails. He’d never quite believed it all the way through.

But now it was real, it was here and done and irreversible, and it was a pain beyond all imagining, beyond all control. Sparks flew from his fingers as the last of the King’s magic ebbed from him. He no longer knew what he was doing, just that he desired to end the agony that moment, that he could not withstand this. But the familiar weight of his daggers refused to appear in his hands.

He didn’t want to, but his hands moved up to see. Noct’s face was slack, his eyes half-closed. The cruel blade that pierced his chest had sunk through into the heavy wood behind him and pinned him upright. Was this how the Gods rewarded the faithful, that their chosen king must take his throne in such a way? He could not endure the feeling of the skin already cooling beneath his fingers, and so he tore himself away.

He felt Gladio’s hand on his shoulder, and stood, numb. Somehow, the three of them carried Noctis from the throne room and laid him to rest. He endeavored to commit as little of it to memory as possible.

And yet vivid was the sweat on the back of his neck and the scent of freshly-turned earth. He rose and straightened his back, preparing to walk tall from this place. He’d never done anything more difficult.

* * *

There was ample work in Lucis, even for a blind man. The daemons had gone, but the monsters of the daylight remained, and with it the need to control the wild populations and hunt game for meat. He had honed his skills well in the ten years of darkness, the darkness that had ended for everyone but him. He moved with speed and precision, and a new ferocious recklessness that shattered bone and shredded flesh. There was no longer any magic to return his daggers to him once thrown, and so once again, he adapted to the circumstances.

He soon found that his collection of scars was no longer limited to his face. But what should he care what he looked like? He took out his unconfessed frustrations on these creatures that time after time failed to do more than graze him, the restlessness that the pain that was never intense enough to distract from, a simple scuffle with beasts nothing compared to the sick intoxication of adrenaline from a real war.

His friends were less impressed with the change in his fighting style.

“You tryin’ to get killed or something?” snapped Gladio, pulling him out of the path of a charging Dualhorn. The words hung in the air a little too long. Nothing more was said, but somehow he found himself sharing fewer and fewer hunts with the former Shield of the King.

No matter. There were plenty of new and veteran hunters who had heard of his reputation during the long night, and he rarely hunted alone. It was not necessary to stick with those who knew him well, or those who reminded him of the past. He could remain an enigma, who they spoke of in whispers and fell silent when he drew near, though they often misjudged the acuity of his hearing. 

It was Prompto, beside him one day on a hunt, as they helped a farmer heft the corpse of an Anak into the truck he had provided, who said something familiar.

“You know, I always kind of feel bad after I kill these things.”

He’d often voiced such a sentiment, in the days when the four of them had roamed Eos, and Ignis had agreed. He recalled the sight of the long-necked beasts and their magnificent horns, the ferocity with which they defended their young from his blades. Back then, he had learned how to dodge the horns, to slit the throat cleanly, to bring on unconsciousness and death as swiftly as he could. He had never taken any joy in a creature’s suffering. Even now, he moved with the same precision, repeating the well-practiced strikes, perhaps even more efficient now that there was no compassion to spare.

He placed a hand on the lifeless slab of meat before him. The scent of death and blood was suddenly all too much, rising to consume him. Though the flesh beneath his fingertips was beginning to cool, he snatched his hand away as if it burned. He was grateful for the sound of Prompto’s voice, stilling the pool of memories that had been stirred.

“You wanna ride up front? I don’t mind sitting in the back.”

He made a noise intended to sound like agreement, before opening the passenger-side door.

* * *

There came a day when the heat of the sun bore down upon him, magnified by the window-pane, and he sat, restless, twirling a dagger between his fingers. No other hunters had appeared at the rest stop, and he was beginning to feel as if he would truly lose his mind if he spent another minute on the hard plastic seats of the diner, inhaling the scent of oil from the deep-fryer. He stood, and his feet carried him to the counter.

“I’ll do the hunt on my own,” he said.

“Are you sure about that?” He could hear the disbelief in the cook’s voice. “I wouldn’t send a party of less than four or five, for somethin’ like this.”

Ignis suppressed the urge to make a sweeping gesture across the empty room and a sarcastic comment. Instead he said, “I’ve fought one before. And you know no one is more accustomed to fighting in the dark than I.”

“Well, I can’t stop ya. Hold on tight to your dogtags, then.”

And so he found himself heading for Steyliff Grove.

* * *

He descended, the echoes of his footsteps on the stone allowing him to gauge the space he was in, though he had to proceed cautiously, knowing that some of the stairways ended in abrupt precipices. The ruins were empty, with no trace of the daemons that had once dwelt there, and the only signs of life were the occasional buzzes of insects, or calls of birds taking flight high above. The air became cooler the further down he ventured, a welcome relief from the humidity of the Vesperpool on a sunny day, though it was still damp and stagnant.

There was a cold draft, and the movement of air sounded like that of an open space. He was deep in the ruins now, and his quarry must be here. He listened carefully, for the sound of claws on stone, for the sweep of feather-muted wings. The beast was here, and he knew it would be watching.

There was a rush, a great mass of air pushed forward as the creature launched itself. The gust shivered through its feathers, and the chamber resounded with its wingbeats. Ignis pivoted, let the snapping jaws of the quetzalcoatl sail past him, thrusting his daggers upward into the leathery section of its wing as it passed overhead. The skin tore like sailcloth, and the creature spattered the ground and surroundings with blood as it flailed desperately to regain altitude. He heard the clatter and thump of a clumsy landing on a higher ledge, a screech of fury. Fallen tiles shattered on the floor. He braced himself for the next attack.

There was no attempt at stealth this time as the predator landed before him, and he blocked a serpentine snap of fangs with the flat of his dagger, teeth clashed on metal and the beast gave a fierce hiss, as hooked claws swept down toward him. He stepped back, trying to entice the creature to pursue, to leave itself open in a blind fury, but instead it thrashed, sweeping its great tail across the battlefield. It struck him in the side with the force of a battering ram. The wind knocked from him, he sprawled on the ground and gasped, only to be greeted by the agony of bruised and broken ribs. He wanted to lie there, stunned, but in a battle like this, each moment was an eternity. He staggered to his feet, clutching his daggers with grazed hands.

To the left. The quetzalcoatl pounced again, and he stumbled out of the way, his attempted counterattack slicing through empty air. Teeth snapped at him, too close for comfort. He lashed out and was rewarded with another splatter of blood and an unholy shriek that made his ears ring. He stumbled on rough stone, but before he could hit the ground, he was snatched up by fangs that sank into his shoulder. Gasping from the pain that shot down his arm, he slammed the pommel of his dagger somewhere near the creature’s eye, and it released him. He raced to regain his balance, but in the moment that it took, the massive clawed forefoot caught him full-force, tearing through his flesh and tossing him like a ragdoll. He landed against a pillar and slumped there, listening to the furious breathing of the creature, the pad of its feet as it approached, trying to will his useless body to rise, to move, to fight.

The creature breathed and the scent of venom and blood lingered in the air. In. Out. Closer. His fingers were numb and clumsy as they found the bloodsoaked hilt of one of his daggers, fumbling for grip. He raised the lone blade before him, arm trembling with the effort, until his fingers no longer obeyed. The dagger dropped into his lap.

And a sword fell like a thunderbolt. It sank deep into the creature’s skull, bursting one of its eyes in a mess of blood and fluid, piercing the great eye-socket and jutting out of the lower jaw. The scene was illuminated by an eerie glow, one that came from within the sword itself. 

Light that only dead eyes could see.

There was another flash, as a second sword, long and thin, pierced through the beast’s neck. Blades rained down on the quetzalcoatl, tearing through flesh to clatter on stone long after its cries and thrashing had ceased and there was only the steady drip of blood. The world returned to silence, darkness. 

Then he appeared.

“This isn’t what I hoped for you, Ignis,” said the King of Kings, his features sorrowful, lit by a gentle glow that seemed to dwell under his skin.

“Is any of this what we hoped for?” asked Ignis. He’d meant to say it bitterly, as he clutched the wound in his side, but it came out weak and pleading. Something slipped beneath his fingers- Gods, were those his intestines? He hurt, not in a way that spiked his adrenaline and cleared his senses, but with a seeping heaviness that dulled everything but the pain.

“I suppose you’re right.” Noctis knelt beside him, reaching out a hand for Ignis’ shoulder, the way they had always reached out for each other when they fought side by side, never allowing the other to fall. His eyes were gentle. 

“Luna is with me. We- I can heal you.”

Ignis took his wrist, stopped his hand before it could touch.

“No.”

Noctis looked pained, his eyes turning to where their hands overlapped. But he rested there, pushing no further.

“I don’t intend to let you leave again,” Ignis said, as firmly as he could muster.

The King gave a sorrowful smile. There was a grace in his mien, a patience that his younger, brasher self had often lacked. He was all the more beautiful for it.

“I see. Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely certain.”

The hand reached out in offering, and he took it. He was pulled forward, leaving his body behind as he rose to his feet.

“Then, today we walk tall. Together.”

The light spread out before him, and the years of darkness were only a memory.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this rattling round my brain since I marathoned FFXV and the DLC content immediately after. Given the events of Episode Ignis, I found it hard to imagine Ignis, well... ever being okay again after the ending. (Though recently I've seen some more screenshots of him genuinely smiling post-Altissia and even in Insomnia, which made me think I might have underestimated his resilience). Still, I love my godawful depressing angst, so here it is.
> 
> This was a massive pain to write that I've been picking over for months and am still not entirely happy with (though there are a few bits I quite like). But eventually you just gotta post it and move on.


End file.
